jchastain
Posts: 2164
Joined: 8/8/2003 From: Marietta, GA Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: AaronTPV While I understand your point Joe, that's really beside the point. Matrix is still the front end of this deal and would, I would hope at least, have some clout in how their products are handled. Matrix chooses which products to place under their moniker, which to announce, which to market, etc. Is it really true that Matrix had to announce this game when they acquired the rights? -Aaron Perhaps they didn't HAVE TO announce the game at acquisition, it would have created an entirely new set of issues had they chosen not to. People would still have been asking for status. One would assume the developers would still have been in communication with the community. It would have been much worse to just disappear off the radar entirely. So, should developers be communicating but not permitted to discuss the most significant piece of news? And when Matrix, as publisher, asked them to do something how would they explain the sudden change of direction? As Matrix, wouldn't you rather have the communication here where it can be monitored rather than off somewhere that you do not have any visibility? And don't you want to bring visibility to the title by exposing it to all the people who flow through this site for other games? They didn't absolutely have to announce the title, but I just don't see how it could have made sense for them not to do so. And as the publisher, they really do have a limited level of control over the project. It is not as if they own the developer - they have a business relationship but not direct control. That said, as I commented before, I believe that when they enter into that relationship they should be expected to do so with eyes wide open and to understand any existing commitments and factor them into their decisions. In this case, I thought that people's request for status was very reasonable in light of the history and the fact that more than 3 months had passed since they were given a report that made it seem that release was potentially close at hand. Normally, that request should have been addressed by the developers but for whatever reason (and there are plenty of perfectly valid reasons why that might be the case) he was not responding. In that case, I believe that Matrix did have at least some obligation to follow up and provide some leadership as their role as publisher includes a degree of customer liaison responsibility. Paul's message indicated he would attempt to ensure additional status was provided. At that point, I believe that Matrix had additional obligation to ensure that a status was in fact provided as their name was now attached to the promise. All that said, Erik's post above provided the requested status in a fairly thorough manner. And with his post, I believe this matter was resolved in a satisfactory way. All people were ever asking for was an accurate status. And that is what we received. Thanks again to Erik for being so forthright.
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